


blood on the sheets

by glitterpop



Series: twisted affections [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: D/s themes, F/M, M/M, and steve likes it when bucky marks him up and shit, bottom!Steve, bucky likes to bruise and mark up steve, mostly vague though, not really what the story is about though, steve just think about it a lot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-04
Updated: 2014-09-04
Packaged: 2018-02-16 02:12:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,807
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2252019
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glitterpop/pseuds/glitterpop
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“What makes you happy?” Sam asked, looking him in the eye, smiling a little.</p>
<p>'Bucky does,' Steve thinks a little desperately. Bucky didn’t make him happy either though, that was the thing. All of the happiest moments of his life, all of the best decisions, Bucky had been at the center of almost all of them. He was making himself sick with thinking about Bucky now, though. Sick with grief, sick with ‘what-ifs’. Thinking of Bucky made him want to cry on a good day, and made him want to disappear into thin air on a bad day.</p>
<p>------</p>
<p>Steve wishes he could be dealing with this future he's been put into, and the dreams he's been having, better than he has been. It's just that he left everything that meant anything to him in the past.</p>
            </blockquote>





	blood on the sheets

**Author's Note:**

> So, this is actually the first fanfiction I've ever written. If you don't count those awkward self-inserts everyone writes when they're, like, eleven or something. And I'm sorry if it's a little wonky! I mostly just write poetry, I have no idea how to deal with plots or making everything flow like this. But I hope you guys enjoy this regardless! I'd like to write more and get better at this. And if you guys don't really like it, that's fine too of course~

Steve dreams about the suit some nights.

Not very often. He has these dreams maybe once every four or five months. Nothing too frequent, so he hasn’t brought them up to anyone. He hasn’t brought up any of his dreams to anyone, but, he thinks sometimes, if it ever came down to it, he would talk about his dreams of drowning in the ice first. He’d talk about his dreams where he would crawl his way out of his submerged plane, how he would swim and swim and swim until he got to Peggy for their dance, and it’d be the forties but Peggy is old, so old and frail and she doesn’t remember him. He’d talk about his dreams of cold winter nights, of feeling his bones so close to his skin, like they would break through at the slightest touch. Dreams of shivering cold in bed, three blankets piled on not enough to warm his small body through the night, before he talked about his dreams of the suit.

He thought once maybe he’d talk about his dreams of muggy summer nights in Brooklyn. Dreams of laying undressed in bed, with a larger body hovering over his, trapping him in a haze of heat and limbs. He’d tell whoever asked about the trails of fire nails took down his chest, leaving thin lines of blood to ooze out lazily and slowly trail down his frail torso. He’d talk about teeth set into the meat of his thigh, or what meat there was to be had, pressure and force until he bled. He’d talk about the growl that echoed in his head as he cried out softly.

He thought once maybe he’d talk about those dreams before he talked about the dreams with the suit, and he found himself in the bathroom, dry heaving into the toilet and trying to curl himself so small around his center that maybe he’d disappear. Maybe he’d lose the bulk and his skin and bones and he’d just vanish, forgotten by the people around him slowly but surely. He carefully never had that thought again.

-

The dream was always the same, on the nights when he had it.

He would wake up first –

[that was what always threw him it never felt like he was asleep more like that moment between sleep and wakefulness just sharp enough to believe that whatever was happening was real]

and it would still be night, the moon shining through the window the only thing lighting up the room. He would wake up suddenly and the suit would be on the end of the bed. He’s almost sure that he didn’t leave it there, but he came in late from a three week mission, exhausted and feeling numb on the inside. He’s almost sure he didn’t leave his suit on the end of the bed, but he can also feel his heart thudding away in his chest, and he’s almost sure he left that on a train in the past.

He can’t leave the suit on the bed, he’s not sure why it matters but it _does_ , it does matter, so he gets up and the suit gets up with him. The suit stands up with him but there is no one in the suit, he’s certainly not in the suit so it shouldn’t be moving but. But.

Well. It might not be the weirdest thing that’s ever happened to him.

Steve lurches off the bed, grabbing his shield as he scrambles to his feet. The suit stands by the bed, motionless and very unsettling. He stands still, crouching, holding the shield in front of him, but nothing else happens. The suit stays where it is, facing him at the end of the bed. A minute passes like this, two and then three. He really doesn’t want to have to move from his spot, but there doesn’t seem to be another option to figuring out what is going on here.

He takes one step forward and nothing happens, so he takes another two and he’s standing only a foot or so away from his suit now. Still nothing happens after a minute more of standing, and Steve lowers his shield in confusion, and then it happens.

At first he thinks that the suit dissolves, but no, that’s not really what it is. It _liquefies_ , that’s what it does. It liquefies and rushes towards him, attaching itself to his skin. It rushes up his arms, down his chest, it seeps down under the sleep pants he was barely able to manage to throw on before he passed out. He tries clawing at his arms to get it off, but it’s _attached_ itself to him, it feels like clawing off his skin when he tries to tear it off. The suit covers his fingers now, and Steve can feel his boots on his feet, he’s not sure how that’s possible but apparently it is now, it’s as possible as his suit becoming part of his body apparently is now.

That’s when he notices the suit moving up his neck to his face.

His first reaction is confusion, because his suit has a helmet but it doesn’t have a mask and he doesn’t understand why it’s trying to cover his face. Then he understands that it’s not trying to cover his face; it’s just covering his mouth. It’s covering his mouth and it’s _going inside his mouth_. He can feel it sliding down his throat and it’s _cold_ , it’s cold and thick and it just keeps going down. He can feel it covering his body on the outside and now he can feel it covering his body from the inside too.

It’s when he feels it crawl its way upward that he panics, because what is the suit going to do if it reaches his brain? What is _he_ going to do if it reaches his brain? So he panics and tries to tear off the suit covering his face, but the suit is part of his skin and it hurts. He keeps trying though and he feels something tear away, and there’s a brief moment of triumph before he sees blood covering his hands and dripping to the floor. There’s another moment when he realizes that the suit isn’t part of his skin like he thought, but that it has actually become his skin. It has become his skin and he has just torn part of his face off. The next moment is when the pain hits.

The pain is very brief, because in the final moment before the dream ends, the suit inside his body reaches his brain and Steve ceases to exist.

-

The day after he has the dream for the first time, he holds the suit in his hands for a few long hours before systematically destroying it. He refuses to answer any questions about what happened to it, and they make him a new one. One harder to destroy. He tears it apart anyways, just as slowly and thoroughly. He does the same to the third one before he stops bothering, before it hits him that he can destroy as many as he wants, more will just be made in the last ones place.

The first time he wears the suit after the first dream, he keeps it on for hours longer than he has to because he’s scared of what might happen if he tries to take it off. He’s scared that as soon as he tries, he’ll find that it has fused with his body and that it won’t come off, that he’ll be in the suit forever. He thinks about that moment in his dream where he tore off his face trying to take the suit off and tries not to scream through his teeth.

Of course the suit comes off, easy as you please, when he finally tries.

-

A week after the first dream, he’s shaving in front of the mirror when he wonders if Bucky would have had the same kind of problem with the suit if he had been the one to wear it. He breaks his mirror and his knuckles are healed within the hour.

-

He doesn’t want to tell anyone about any of the dreams he has. It’s not like he wakes up screaming from them, or that they interfere with his daily life, and he knows that’s better than some people have it. What does it matter if he wakes up freezing some nights, unsure of the time or the year, or even where he is? What does it matter that sometimes when he wakes up, he finds the sheets pulled from the bed and torn to shreds, bite marks and scratches in his pillows? He knows it could be so much worse, and he isn’t exactly jumping at the bit to share his dreams with strangers. He can deal with them just fine on his own.

He could have mentioned something to his therapist when he still saw her. S.H.I.E.L.D assigned her to him when he first emerged from the ice, afraid that the jump of seventy years would be too hard on him, that he would short out if he didn’t have someone to vent to. It was hard, but he’s never needed to rely on anyone for help

[never never bucky stop it i can take care of myself i’m sick but it’s okay it’ll be okay please don’t go don’t fall don’t leave me please please]

and he wasn’t about to start. He figured out his own way and said the bare minimum during his therapy sessions. His therapist was a kind woman, with a soft look in her eyes and a seemingly genuine desire to help him. She could never understand.

They stopped making him go see her after a few months.

So he doesn’t tell anyone about the dreams, and mostly he doesn’t think about them. After a few more repeats of the suit dream, however, he thinks maybe he understands why he’s having them. It confused him at first, because it didn’t make sense why he was having them. The others he could get; the abrupt loss and change in his life was bound to wreak some havoc on his mind, but the dreams of symbiosis with his suit? Not as much.

It hits him early in the morning, after the fourth dream, when he’s sitting on his bed trying to calm the racing of his heart.

He thinks maybe he’s having these dreams because Steve Rogers and Captain America are two separate people. They shouldn’t be. It’s not like Steve leaves his own body when he goes to work. He doesn’t leave and come back to himself only after he takes off the suit. Steve’s the one that leads missions, Steve’s the one that makes the decisions on who goes where and who does what. No one else does that from his body.

Steve is Captain America, but that’s not the way the world sees it.

The world only knows stories about Captain America. Of course there are stories about Steve and his childhood, the way he grew up, but it’s told as an origin story. It’s not a way of telling who Steve is as a person, it’s a way of telling everyone else who he was before he became this famed super human. Everyone in the future knows who Captain America is, but no one knows who Steve was before the serum, not really.

Everyone who knew who Steve was before the serum is either dead or can’t remember.

Captain America is painted in colors of Righteousness and he is always there with the Right Words and Right Actions. He leads people effortlessly into battle and always Saves The Day. Everyone wants to know Captain America, so they can go to their friends and talk about how they know such a Brave and Good man. Everyone wants him at the head of the team that goes on the most dangerous missions, and they trust him to bring everyone out alive. Captain America can Do No Wrong. He is set apart from the people he saves because, to them, he is Better than they could ever hope to be.

Steve isn’t quite like that.

It’s not that Steve doesn’t believe he isn’t a good man. It’s more that he knows that sometimes the right thing to do isn’t always a good thing. The only reason he was chosen to be a scientific guinea pig was because he kept trying to lie his way into the Army. Steve didn’t like bullies, but he never felt too bad when he saw that a guy who had beat him up in some dirty alley had a broken nose and two black eyes a few days later. Steve tried very hard to be a good person, but before he got the serum there was so much wrong with him, and he lived with it because that was all he could do, but if he tried to say it didn’t make him a little bitter he’d be lying through his teeth.

He went looking for fights because if he was getting beat up, then it meant that some innocent person was being left alone. He also went into those fights hoping to do as much damage as he could, as unrealistic as he knew that could be. And sometimes Bucky wasn’t there, sometimes he couldn’t be around to save his ass, so he learned a few things to get him out of a tight spot. If he kicked a few guys in the balls, if he elbowed a few kidneys, if he went for an eye or two, well. Well at least he came out of it alive. At least he couldn’t do too much damage in the long run.

Steve isn’t a bad person, but he knows the best places to punch and kick to do the maximum amount of damage with the least amount of effort or evidence. He knows the right way to twist words to piss people off, to hurt them enough to charge at him. He knows what his blood tastes like sliding down his throat, whether it’s because he’s tipping his head back from a broken nose or he’s bitten his tongue hard enough to bleed.

[he knows what his blood tastes like when he sucks it off of someone else’s tongue, when he licks it from their lips]

Steve is a good person, he knows he is, but he also knows that he takes too much enjoyment out of fighting people if given the right reason to do so.

The problem is that no one knows Steve, they only know Captain America. They only want to know Captain America. It doesn’t seem to register that Steve is a person outside of the legend, that maybe he has off days and wants and needs outside of missions. It feels like he has to be Captain America all the time, no time to just be Steve Rogers.

The suit takes him over in his dreams because Steve feels like he’s disappearing behind this legend people have created of him. He’s not sure if he wants to laugh or cry. He takes a long shower instead of doing either.

-

When he isn’t sleeping and having his dreams, he’s working. When he isn’t working, he’s either going to see Peggy, running errands, or working out. When he isn’t doing that, he spends his time thinking of Bucky.

He thinks of Peggy too; the way her hair burned in the sun light, the way she fought for the things she believed in. He thinks of her face when she shot at his shield, and he thinks of her face when she was fighting off a smile after he did something particularly reckless. He thinks of the way her lips felt under his, the one kiss they shared. He thinks of the strength in her voice when she told him not to be late for their date, even as she choked back tears.

Peggy is still alive though, resting in a nursing home, having lived a full and happy life. She had picked herself up and gone on with her life, and he was happy for it. He was happy for the life she got to live, and it hurt the times when she forgot him, but it was okay. He was proud of her, and he loved her despite everything, as best he could.

Bucky isn’t alive anymore. Bucky is at the bottom of a mountain somewhere because Steve hadn’t been able to reach far enough to save him. Bucky isn’t alive anymore, and he loved Peggy dearly, but Bucky had been e _verything_ to him. He’d been the sun he revolved around, the cool hand on his fevered forehead, the one who fought at his side.

Bucky had also been the monster who lived under his bed sometimes, and Steve feels a small shiver of pleasure go up his spine when he thinks about that.

-

He remembers being nineteen, him and Bucky in the cramped kitchen of the tiny apartment they could barely afford to keep. Steve had just gotten into a fight, and what usually happened was that Bucky would help treat his wounds if he needed it while scolding him, as if hoping that would change Steve’s behavior. That’s wasn’t how it went down that time.

Bucky had crowded him against the small table, had gripped his jaw and bent him backwards over the table. He had towered over a much smaller Steve, locked eyes with him as he held his face tight enough to hurt. Steve remembers having thought that if it had been anyone else, he would have punched them square in the jaw. It was Bucky though, and something in him had shivered as Bucky bent him over far enough so that he couldn’t balance on his feet.

“I think you like being hurt Stevie,” Bucky had muttered, and his words were fond but his face was blank and frozen over. His eyes were burning hot though, and Steve hadn’t been able to tell if he had been furious or amused by something only he knew about. Looking back, Steve supposed it was both.

“I don’t,” he had bit out around the grip Bucky hadn’t relinquished. “I just don’t like assholes that act like they can get away with anything just ‘cause they’re bigger.”

Bucky had hummed low in his throat, pulling back a little to look Steve up and down. Like he was looking at the whole of Steve for something he wouldn’t name. The way his eyes had widened slightly, the way his jaw clenched when he did this, had made Steve think for a moment that it looked like Bucky wanted to eat him alive.

[he laughs at that thought now he laughs about it alone because now he knows he knows that that was exactly what Bucky had wanted to do he had wanted to eat Steve he had wanted to slit his own belly open and put Steve in there anything to keep everyone else away from him]

“Those assholes put their hands all over you,” Bucky had finally said after a few minutes of silence. “They shove ya to the ground, they put their hands on you and bloody ya up Steve. They spit and they kick, and they never learn the lesson you want them to. It pisses me off, Stevie, it really does. I hate it when they put their hands on you like that.”

Steve had listened to this silently, confused where Bucky was taking this. His jaw was aching and his spine was singing the same tune, and he knew there would be bruises on him that the asshole in the alley hadn’t left. The idea of bruises on his body left by Bucky left him feeling a little weak in the knees, and he squirmed a little when he realized that the idea didn’t make him uncomfortable. He hadn’t had long to dwell on it though; what Bucky did next made it hard to breathe.

His lip had been split in the earlier fight, and Bucky had reached for his face and swiped his thumb along the cut, hard enough to reopen it. Steve hissed at the contact, unexpected and surprising. Bucky pulled his hand away, tightening the other one on his jaw ever so slightly. Steve could see the bright red of his blood on Bucky’s thumb, but it was there and gone in an instant. Bucky had sucked his thumb into his own mouth, and Steve had a brief glimpse of his tongue licking at the digit when he pulled it out, clean and damp.

Steve’s heart had stuttered in his chest when he saw that, he had almost stopped breathing completely. And maybe he would have chalked it up to a brief moment of fear, maybe the things that had happened after that moment in time would have been different if he did. But there had been a bright flare of heat low in his gut too that had settled into him in the most delicious way. That had been there too when he saw it, and he couldn’t lie to himself and say he was scared.

Bucky had kept eye contact with him the whole time, and whatever he had seen in Steve at that moment made him hum low in his throat again. He slowly brought Steve up from his bent over position and let go of his jaw. He had looked Steve over silently for a minute more before he had turned and left for the bedroom they shared. Steve had stayed in the kitchen for much longer, wondering what had happened and wondering at how he was reacting to it.

Later, in the tiny bathroom, Steve had looked in the mirror and found he had been right earlier. There were four bruises smudged on the left side of his jaw and one on his right. A perfect imprint of where Bucky had gripped him earlier. Steve had touched those bruises softly and felt that heat in his gut grip him again. He had stared at those bruises for long minutes before he turned and left the bathroom.

Something in Steve ached when the bruises finally faded.

-

When he has the thought again, the one that wondered if Bucky would have had the same dreams of the suit if he had been the one to get it, he takes his time to think it over instead of lashing out.

He thinks of Bucky, eight years old and under fed, appearing from out of nowhere to save a seven year old Steve from a kid twice his size. He thinks of the punch Bucky delivered to the side of the bully’s head, the kick to the shin he gave, and he thinks of how Bucky had laughed when Steve had told him he was only fighting the kid because he was taking money from smaller boys. Bucky had stuck by his side ever since.

He thinks of him and Bucky growing into their bodies as they got older. Or, rather, he remembers Bucky growing taller and broader and even more handsome than he had been before, while he remained short and scrawny and weak. Bucky had never made him feel weaker than he was, never treated him any different, but Steve had known that they were in different categories. Bucky could do so much more than Steve could, Bucky had deserved so much more than Steve could give him. He had always laughed when he was told this though, pointing out that Steve is all he needs to be happy. He remembers the rush of warmth that statement caused him.

He thinks of the swagger Bucky walked with, the way he drew everyone’s eyes to him when he walked down the street. The way he _knew_ he drew everyone’s eyes. Bucky always knew he had people looking at him left and right, and he tried to keep his face neutral about it, but he could never quite stop the small tug at the corners of his mouth when he was out and about. The casual pride he had in himself and his attitude.

He thinks of that day that Bucky had bruised his jaw in the kitchen, and the way Bucky had looked at him for the month afterwards.

Steve had wanted to join the Army so he could fight for his country. Bucky hadn’t wanted to fight for his country; he had just wanted to watch out for Steve. Steve lied and clawed his way to enlisting, and every time he was turned away, and Bucky had been drafted. Bucky had gone to a war he didn’t want to fight, but he had done it with his head held high. Steve had been chosen to be a scientific experiment to see if maybe he could end up joining the fight too.

He had let himself be paraded around like a monkey, dancing to entertain the masses. After, he had let himself be what his men needed in the army. He had been the rock, the leader, the one to go to for help, because that was what was needed. He had put on the suit and let people see what they wanted. He had always acted on what he knew to be right, even if it got him in trouble, but he had wanted to protect the people around him. If that meant becoming a symbol he didn’t sign up to be, well, he could do that. Would Bucky have done the same? Would Bucky have made the same decisions that led him to have these dreams?

Steve eventually decides that, no, Bucky wouldn’t have had the same issues with the suit and his identity as Steve was having. Steve had wanted to be a symbol to people and his country, and he had let people tell him what that symbol should be. Bucky would never have let someone tell him who he could and couldn’t be.

-

Bucky hadn’t done anything for a month after that day in the past, where he bent Steve over the table and licked Steve’s blood from his thumb. He never even commented on the fingertip bruises that took three days to mostly fade from Steve’s jaw. He hadn’t looked at Steve any more than he used to, but Bucky looked at him more often than maybe he should have before that happened, so it wasn’t saying much. The way Bucky looked at him changed though. The looks had become sharper, more intense. It had made Steve feel like he was being flayed open and examined for something specific, and he had no idea what that thing could be.

Maybe it should have made him feel self-conscious to be stared at like that, but if he was honest with himself, he had liked the attention. He had always liked it when Bucky would look at him, but this was different. They both knew it, and they both weren’t saying anything, but it was different. Steve used to just smile absent mindedly when he caught Bucky looking at him, but every time he caught him at it in that month, Steve had felt a little shiver go through his body. It had made him feel smaller than he’d ever been, but also like he was growing, like he was going to burst out of his skin.

He had felt Bucky’s eyes on him even when he wasn’t around, and it made him feel good.

It was nearing late night at the start of June when Bucky had finally done something. The nights were hot, and it had been muggy in the bedroom they slept in, so Steve had just been dressed in an undershirt and his boxers. He was on his bed, laying with his eyes closed, thinking maybe he’d go to bed early, when he felt the bed dip around him. Opening his eyes had brought him face to face with Bucky, who had perched himself over Steve on all fours.

“Got yourself into another fight, did ya.” It wasn’t a question when Bucky said it, and Steve had hunched in on himself a little.

“Yeah, so what if I did? Ain’t nothin’ new.”

“Ya went almost a month there, Stevie. Kinda surprised it took you this long,” and at those words Bucky had grinned, and it reached his eyes but it didn’t look like it normally did. It had looked hungry.

It’s not like it hadn’t been true. Steve had been avoiding fights, not because he suddenly wasn’t as reckless. It was more that, after how Bucky had reacted that last time, he wasn’t sure what to expect the next time. He still hadn’t been sure how to wrap his head around how he himself had reacted to what Bucky did. He had still thought of his bruised jaw, and the thought had still brought that ache with it, and it had never felt bad when he felt it.

He had seen a guy harassing a woman in the street though, and he couldn’t let that pass without a few words. Hadn’t been his fault the guy had wanted to talk with his fists instead.

“Well, not like the guy didn’t go home with a few bruises himself.” Bucky had snorted when he heard this.

“What, ya manage to land a good kick to the shin?” Bucky had asked, and his smile had turned into something more familiar for a moment before his face was back to how it had been when he had gotten himself above Steve. “You like comin’ home covered in bruises Steve?”

“No, ‘course I don’t. Why in the hell would I?” It was only a little bit of a lie. Steve really didn’t like coming home with evidence of a lost fight, but he did take a small pride in his wounds. It meant he had stood up for himself, for someone else, it meant he had done the right thing. He’d felt his muscles ache and knew he had done something good, even if he had come out worse for wear.

Bucky had stayed silent, looking at Steve for a long moment, before he lifted his hand and touched it to the edge of Steve’s jaw.

“You didn’t seem to mind when I left those bruises on you,” he commented idly, watching Steve’s face closely. Then he had tilted his head, smile softening. “Did you?”

_No,_ Steve had thought a little hysterically. _No, I didn’t mind, and I’m dreaming that you bruise me everywhere and it’s confusing the shit out of me._

“What if I said I did?” Steve had asked quietly.

“I’ll get up,” Bucky had answered immediately. “I’ll get off of ya, and go to my bed, and me an’ you, we can pretend none of this ever happened.” Steve could tell that Bucky had meant every word of what he said. Bucky would have gotten up, brushed off all the intense looks he’d directed at Steve, brushed off any possibilities of what could happen

[what could happen what could possibly happen steve had wondered then with something close to wonder]

if Steve showed even the slightest hint of not wanting it. Bucky had looked so sincere. He had also looked like moving away from Steve, moving away from what could be, would have been like pulling teeth.

Steve had suddenly had the image of Bucky pulling someone else’s teeth out for Steve’s sake. He had swallowed around a suddenly dry throat and wondered why he liked the idea.

When the silence had stretched on too long, Bucky had started to look nervous, like maybe he’d start fidgeting soon.

“Do you want me to move?” he asked quietly.

Steve hadn’t really understood where all of this would lead in the long run, and he hadn’t really been sure at the time why he had wanted it. He had understood, though, that it could go bad very quickly. Bucky was his best friend, his only friend to be honest. Bucky was the most important person in his life and always would be. What if this turned out bad and ruined that? Would he ever be prepared to lose Bucky over something like this? He hadn’t been sure, he had only been sure that he had wanted, and that he was scared.

Steve had never let being scared stop him from doing what he wanted though.

“No,” he said, making sure his voice came out as strong and sure as it could. “No, I don’t want you to move. If ya try I’ll kick ya.”

Bucky’s grin had been blinding to look at.

Bucky had pinched the soft skin of his inner thighs with one hand that night, and covered Steve’s mouth with the other to muffle the noises he was making. He had kept it up for what felt like an hour before he had stopped and moved onto Steve’s sides, then the insides of his arms. Finally Bucky had stopped, curling around Steve on the bed and petting his hair, telling him to go to sleep, he’d be there in the morning. For once, Steve had complied without complaint.

When Steve had woken up, Bucky had already been awake, touching the new bruises on Steve’s body softly and looking at him with something like awe. Like Steve was beautiful and the bruises just made it better.

_Oh,_ Steve had thought. _Oh, that’s how it is._

Another month later, Bucky had bitten over his hip bone hard enough to draw blood. Steve had waited until Bucky had been finished with marking him up before he leaned forward and kissed Bucky on his open mouth. He kept it short, but couldn’t resist sliding his tongue along Bucky’s, tasting the coppery tang of his own blood.

“Oh,” Bucky had said, and no more.

“Sorry,” Steve had said, not really feeling all that sorry. “Sorry if that was weird. I just, I wanted. To do that.”

“Ain’t the blood weird for you?” The look had come back to Bucky’s face, like he wanted to eat Steve alive, like he was looking for something in Steve he wanted to find.

“No.” It hadn’t even occurred to Steve that maybe he should find it weird, kissing the taste of his blood out of another man’s mouth. “No, I mean, is it weird for you?”

“I think you an’ both know by now that I ain’t weirded out by it,” Bucky had said slowly, before he started to smile. Steve knew what that smile meant; it had been one he had only seen on Bucky recently, one that usually meant he had thought of something fun for them to try. The last time Steve had seen that smile, he hadn’t been able to sit down for a week because Bucky had used his nails to claw deep scratches on his back and ass. He had felt vulnerable that night, Bucky behind him on the bed, licking the blood off his thighs, the dip where his spine curved into his ass. He had felt like he had been floating for days after that.

He had been jolted out of his thoughts when Bucky had swiped his finger over where his hip was still oozing blood, just a little. He had thought that Bucky would suck the finger into his own mouth, and was surprised when instead he brought it to Steve’s. The way he had been looking at him had told Steve that he wouldn’t judge him if he turned down the offer, but he never backed down from things he perceived as challenges. If he got to tease Bucky, that was just an added bonus, and with that thought he sucked Bucky’s finger in his mouth.

He had taken a sweet sort of satisfaction when he was done and pulling off of Bucky’s hand and he saw how heavy Bucky had been breathing.

“Can I kiss you please?” Steve had asked, all faux coyness and innocent smiles, and Bucky had laughed and laughed and laughed.

“Stevie,” he had sighed when he finished. “Stevie, you can do whatever ya want, baby doll. Lemme clean you up first though, okay?”

It had been an easy deal to make.

-

Part of the reason he feels so alone in the future is because he has nothing he can talk about to relate to the people around him. It’s hard for him to share stories of his life, because what is a recent memory to him is out dated to everyone else. No one understands the things he’s referencing, no one knows the people he mentions… no one knows his life. He makes sure he learns about this future, he has no choice, but no one seems interested in learning about the past for him.

It doesn’t help that he mostly just wants to talk about Bucky. Most of his life had involved Bucky in one form or another, and his loss was still so fresh for him. And he’d always handled the things that upset him, but he’d always had Bucky by his side to help take the burden. Losing Bucky, he had no one to turn to, especially not in this future. It was devastating for Steve in a way he couldn’t handle, and there was no one he could talk to about it.

That hadn’t stopped him at first; for a while he’d brought up Bucky naturally, every time something came up that reminded Steve of him. Funny stories, mentioning things Bucky had done on missions. Dumb faces Bucky had pulled when Steve had been sick in bed, not even seeing straight. It had made him feel a little bit better, keeping Bucky close like that.

He’d been in the middle of telling his then therapist the story of how Steve had been accosted by a sex worker in Paris after he had protected her from a drunk man and how Bucky had laughed and made fun of him for days after

[anything to avoid talking about the problems he was facing anything to avoid talking about how hard this all was for him]

when she had interrupted him.

“Steve,” and he had been able to tell immediately that he wouldn’t like what she had to say, the gentle tone of her voice. “Don’t you think it’s unhealthy to be holding onto Bucky like this?”

“I’m not sure what you mean,” he had replied, a little surprised that she would say that. She had wanted him to talk about his life; Bucky was a major part of his life. He couldn’t help that.

“I understand how close you and Bucky were…”

_Do you?_ Steve had thought, partly in spite and partly in panic.

“You have to understand that he’s been dead a long time though. It isn’t healthy for you to hold so tightly to his memory.” Steve stared flabbergasted at her while she continued on, oblivious to Steve’s thoughts. “His death was seventy years ago; don’t you think it’s time to move on?”

That had been when he realized that nobody would understand. That there was no one he could share Bucky with, not really. Nobody else is grieving for Bucky anymore. They had had time since his loss in the mountains. None of these people knew him like Steve had, and everyone who did is dead. Bucky is still freshly dead for Steve, and everyone is expecting him to deal with it like they are.

How could he though? He and Bucky had been… Bucky had been everything. Bucky had taken care of him when he was sick, had saved him from fights for longer than he could remember. He had stuck by Steve when no one else would, had stayed close when others sneered and turned their backs. He’d never treated Steve any different, no matter what was happening. He had given Steve something he had never known he had wanted. How could he just move on from that?

That was the other part of why he feels so alone in this future; the only person he wanted to be with was left in the past.

-

Steve wouldn’t admit it, but there’s a small part of him that doesn’t want to share Bucky. No matter how badly he wants to be able to have someone to talk with and remember Bucky like he does, he’s also a little grateful. Bucky doesn’t belong to anybody but Steve anymore, and that’s what he’s always wanted really.

He had always had to share Bucky before; with girls around the neighborhood, with Bucky’s other friends and his bosses. He’d never begrudged Bucky having a life outside of him, but he’d always felt a little selfish and sick, wanting Bucky for himself.

It was part of the reason Steve had loved when Bucky would hurt him. If Bucky was at work later than they thought he would be, Steve could pull down the collar of his shirt and see the bruises Bucky had painted there with his mouth. If Bucky was taking a girl out that night to show her a good time, Steve would sit down just so and feel the scratches pulling at his skin. If Bucky went out one night to the bar with his friends, Steve could touch his fingers to the teeth marks on the inside of his thighs.

It was a promise between them that went unspoken; Bucky would go out, but he always came home to Steve.

God, how would he even explain that to someone? Any way he could think of even broaching this topic made him sound like a victim of Stockholm syndrome, made Bucky look like an abusive asshole. That hadn’t been how it was at all; Steve had been so _happy_ with the way Bucky treated him. He had never done anything Steve hadn’t wanted. He always took care of Steve after, stroking his hair and calling him sweet things, kissing him when Steve had been ready for it.

It hadn’t really been a sexual thing either. Neither of them got hard when Bucky hurt him like that. Every time they had had sex, Bucky had always been so gentle with him, going slow and holding him like he was breakable, and maybe it had annoyed him a little but it was worth it, it was always worth it. They didn’t bring pain into that part of what they had.

There was one memory, vivid among all the others that Steve always circled back to. It had been early autumn that time, and he and Bucky had been laying down on his bed. Bucky’s finger had been lightly touching the dark bruise he had sucked into the crook of Steve’s elbow, and he’d been so quiet for a while. Steve might have worried, but he had been feeling good, floating in his mind while Bucky brought him down.

“I wish I could show others how pretty you bruise.”

Steve had jumped, but only a little, still feeling too sweet to really have been with it.

“Hm?”

“Yeah. Wish I could take ya around town, show others how ya well you turn these pretty black and blues. Wish I could tell everyone I do it ‘cause I love ya, ‘cause it makes you so sweet and pliant when I dig my teeth into ya.” Steve had opened his eyes to look at Bucky at this point, confused but maybe a little interested as well, and Bucky’s eyes had been trained on his face, the black eye he had from a fight from yesterday.

“Bucky—“

“They keep _hurting_ you! Stevie, they keep hurting ya, they don’t see how great you are, it _pisses me off_ so much to see you come home, all bruised up from some asshole that don’t even know ya.”

He had opened his mouth to reply, then he had closed it and thought about what he might say. He thought of what needed to be said, and what Bucky had wanted to hear. He thought about Bucky’s face when he had come home, his eye already half swollen closed. He thought of the way Bucky’s eyes hadn’t left his face when he had prepped him last night, the way he had bit Steve’s mouth while he was thrusting into him.

“I ain’t gonna stop gettin’ into fights,” he had said slowly. “Not when other people need help.” Bucky’s brow had furrowed at those words, his mouth set thin. “I don’t want you to share me though. All those assholes, it don’t mean nothin’ when they punch me. I ain’t anyone to them. It means somethin’ when you do it Buck.” He reached out and grabbed Bucky’s hand, brought it to his mouth. “This is ours, Buck. I don’t want to share this with anyone. I come home bruised up sometimes, but it never means anything. The only marks that matter are the ones you give me.”

Bucky hadn’t said anything, but he had curled close around Steve for longer than usual.

It was still true for Steve. He didn’t want to share that side of Bucky with anyone. He didn’t want to share that side of himself with anyone. How could he? How could anyone even hope to understand how special it was to him? He guarded it jealously, boxed it up and shoved it deep where no one could touch it.

He seemed to be doing that a lot these days.

-

On Sundays mornings every week, while most people went to church dressed in their best, Steve went to go visit with Peggy. She smiled every time she saw him, and on good days she would greet _him_ , not him from the past but he as he was. Her grip was always strong when she held his hands, but that never surprised him. Peggy had always been too strong, too stubborn and perfect for anything less.

On Sundays, if it was a good day, they’d sit and talk and laugh together. Peggy would fill the time by talking about her life, her family and her children. There were pictures of them by the bed, and seeing them made Steve ache, but it was the kind of ache that made him smile. He loved Peggy, and he was glad she had lived her life happily.

On Sundays, if it was a bad day, Peggy would either think they were back in the forties, or she wouldn’t know him at all. Her eyes would glaze over as she would talk, not really seeing him anymore, more some ghost she could never quite reach. Steve would ache those days too, and it was the kind of ache that left him red eyed in the bathroom at his apartment.

This was a Sunday, and it was a good day, and Peggy had just finished a story about her daughter and how she had broken the news to Peggy that she would be a grandmother. She watched as Steve laughed, and her smile became something a little far off, a little sad.

“Bucky was special to you, wasn’t he?”

“What?” Steve jerked backwards, surprised by the sudden turn in conversation.

“Bucky,” Peggy repeated, brightening a little at Steve’s reaction. “You were never quite the same when he fell off the train.”

“I—Well, yeah he was special. He was my best friend.” He could feel himself blushing, not sure where this was going, not sure where he wanted this to go.

“Was he? Just your best friend?” Peggy was grinning, but there was something a little sad about it, and it made Steve pause. He’d always been a bad liar, but he never wanted to lie to Peggy. Not if he could help it.

“Bucky,” and God, how long had it been since he had spoken that name out loud? How long had it been since someone had asked him to talk about Bucky? “Bucky was special to me, yeah.” And here he grabbed Peggy’s hand, the one closest to him, and smiled just for her. “He was special, but that doesn’t mean I loved you any less. You’re my best girl, Peggy.” Peggy smiled back, just for him, and the sadness was gone from her face. He was relieved for that.

“It must be hard. We’ve all moved on from his death, but it’s still so fresh for you.” Steve jerked again, startled and overwhelmed that someone would acknowledge it like that. “You were asleep while we all moved on, and everyone expects you to have done the same.” She gripped the hand Steve still held even harder. “You still look so sad sometimes. Are you really doing okay, Steve?”

“Yes,” Steve answered, thinking of the hole in his heart that nothing seemed to fill. “I’m doing as well as I can be.”

Steve is doing well.

It’s just that everyone expects him to be better.

-

Well, maybe not everyone, Steve amends later.

-

Steve likes Natasha. She was the only one of the Avengers that he’s really spent time with after New York, even if it was mostly on missions. She had a dry sense of humor, along with a liking of bad jokes. She was dependable, mostly, if she didn’t have an ulterior motive he wouldn’t find out about until last minute. He found out she had gone snooping to find out about his neighbors in his apartment when she started talking about the latest gossip in the halls. He also found out she regularly broke into his apartment when he came home from a date she set him up on and found her on his couch. When he voiced his displeasure about that last one, she had only laughed her small laugh.

“Oh please, Steve, it’s not like you have anything dirty you’re hiding. I know, I’ve looked.”

He had thrown up his hands after that. He had also tried giving her a key so she wouldn’t keep messing with his locks, but she had turned it down. She apparently didn’t believe coming into his home in a civilized manner was any fun. It was endearing.

He wishes Natasha would let them be friends, wishes she would stop keeping him arms lengths away, but he doesn’t blame her. He knows that how she is with everybody, except maybe Clint. He knows he’s trying to do the same. He knows better than anyone that it’s the best way to protect yourself when you’ve been backed into a corner too many times to count.

Still, friends or not, Steve likes her, and he likes to think maybe she likes him too, even just a little. He has a lot of reasons, but he won’t lie and say that one of the main reasons he likes her is because she doesn’t expect anything of him. She doesn’t seem to care who he used to be; as long as he’s good at what he does, he gets the feeling he could just be a random nobody from a coffee shop to her. He knows that there’s some weight with his title, he’ll never escape that. He sees a raised brow or two, but other than that it doesn’t seem to matter that he’s Captain America. As long as he doesn’t get in her way.

He knows she’s perfectly capable of kicking his ass. He’ll stay out of her way until necessary.

It’s nice, too, actually having someone to talk to that treats him like everyone else. All he’s met in this future he lives in now are people that have heard so much about Captain America, they come to him with stars in their eyes, wanting to meet the legend. Steve doesn’t see himself as a legend. The suit is the legend, the symbol is the legend. He hates it, and he doesn’t want to disappoint anyone, but he’s not sure who they want him to be.

Natasha, on the other hand, usually just makes jokes about his age and laughs in his face when he tries to look disappointed in her. She’s a breath of fresh air, even with her doom and gloom mindset. He’ll take what he can get from her.

-

He’s not really sure what drove him to talk to the man taking an early morning run. Really, he isn’t. He’s a new face on his run, or maybe he’s passed him before without seeing. Steve does that sometimes, doesn’t see the people around him when he gets into his head space. He’s a new face, and he doesn’t talk to Natasha too often outside of missions, when she isn’t breaking into his apartment, and she has a life of her own too. He’s starved for interaction with people.

Though maybe he’s more out of practice than he thought, and all he can think to do is just say “On your left” every time he passes the guy.

He makes up for it after they’re done running though, and he learns the man’s name is Sam Wilson, and he’s got an easy smile and a sense of humor that matches up with Steve’s. Sam brought up his defrosting, and he had been disheartened for a minute; another person just interested in Captain America. Steve tries to make a quick retreat, but Sam, bless his heart, had saved the conversation.

“It’s your mattress, right?”

He had a feeling Sam would be good for him to try and keep around.

Going to visit him at the VA later that week proved him right.

He’d only been able to catch the last five minutes or so, but seeing Sam lead a group counseling session, he seemed so in his element. Steve admired the things he was saying, wished that the therapist he had been assigned had been able to say things like this to him. He watched Sam wrap up the group and wanted to make a friend out of him.

Talking with Sam after, it became apparent that he didn’t really expect Steve to be anything other than who he was. He treated Steve like a person, laughed and made jokes with him like he wasn’t some living legend. He really hadn’t meant to let the conversation stray into emotional territory. Sam just had a presence about him that made Steve want to be open with himself.

“What makes you happy?” Sam asked, looking him in the eye, smiling a little.

_Bucky does_ , Steve thinks a little desperately. Bucky didn’t make him happy either though, that was the thing. All of the happiest moments of his life, all of the best decisions, Bucky had been at the center of almost all of them. He was making himself sick with thinking about Bucky now, though. Sick with grief, sick with ‘what-ifs’. Thinking of Bucky made him want to cry on a good day, and made him want to disappear into thin air on a bad day.

Steve couldn’t let him go though. It felt like blasphemy. No one else knew Bucky anymore, and Steve is selfish in a way other people can’t see. He wants the thought of Bucky to not cut him so sharp and deep anymore, but the idea of the emotional impact Bucky had on him lessening makes him want to vomit.

What else made him happy? Certainly not working for S.H.I.E.L.D, not with how they lied about everything, not with what he saw. Natasha was a flame he was drawn to, but she didn’t trust him, and he wasn’t sure how much he could trust her. Peggy held a lot of good memories, both past and present, but she was a reminder of things that could have been. He had loved her, but he had loved Bucky more, and he’s not sure he could have let that go in the end. He doesn’t have any hobbies, not outside of art, but he hasn’t seriously drawn anything in a while. He hasn’t wanted to.

Bucky makes him happy still, carrying his memory, but it’s a double edged sword that flays him open every time he picks it up, and he can’t put it down. Bucky haunts him, night and day, and it’s the best and worst feeling he could have ever hoped for. He doesn’t want to drag out his ghosts with Sam, not like this. Not when they barely know each other.

“I don’t know,” he replied, a little helplessly maybe, trying to smile for a man he wanted to get to know better.

-

Missions were easy. Missions had a clear path they had to take. Find the target, eliminate obstacles, and obtain the goal. Steve may have been having nightmares about the suit, may have been having misgivings about his title and what came with it, but he’s always loved the part where he’s actually working. He likes to lead, he likes to save people.

The target and the obstacle were one in the same on this mission, it seemed. The Winter Soldier. A ghost that seemed to rattle Natasha. It was okay though. This man had shot Fury in his apartment in cold blood. This man was part of the reason he had a bounty on his head. They could find him, the two of them together.

“Let’s find out what the ghost wants.”

-

There’s a ghost on the bridge wearing his dead friend’s face.

“Bucky?”

“Who the hell is Bucky?”

For a wild moment Steve wishes this was one of his dreams

[nightmares stop being coy this would never be a dream none of them are this would be awful this already is awful]

that he could just wake up from. That this could be like dreaming of Peggy with her older face, wearing her red dress, dancing with her while she asks him who he is. That it could be like reliving his death, the water going up his nose and down his throat, the shock of the cold locking up his muscles. That is was like dreaming of the suit becoming his flesh, that he could just tear off his face and be done with it. He even wishes that this could be like dreaming of Bucky twisting his head back by his hair, setting his teeth into his collarbones with the intention to mark.

He wishes this were another dream because he didn’t think anything was as horrible as those were for him.

He watches Bucky

[the winter soldier his enemy his friend his lover which is it what is it what is going on]

run from the fight though, feels Rumlow push him to his knees, feels the barrel of several guns on him, and knows that there’s no waking up from this.

**Author's Note:**

> If you like, I do have a Tumblr too [here](http://crimson-shield.tumblr.com) where I mostly just reblog stuff and cry, but oh well


End file.
